THE CIVILISATIONAL IDENTITY OF THE BULGARIANS:TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY DILEMMAS (Cywilizacyjna tozsamosc Bulgarów: tradycyjne i wspólczesne dylematy)

The article deals with the civilisational identity of the Bulgarian people, and the place of the Bulgarians on the civilisation map of Europe. The main problem here is the nature of their civilisational identity: they do not have precise geographical coordinates but they are the result of subjective human perception. In addition, the issue of civilisational identity is a matter of political propaganda. From their historical traditions, the Bulgarians inherited several macro cultural elements, (proto)Bulgarian, Slavonic, Orthodox, Balkanic and European. Considered separately, each of them can form the base required to construct a framework of contemporary Bulgarian identity and its cultural relationship with other nations in Europe. Some of these elements form strong spiritual foci around which are formed their own cultural and civilisational circles. On this basis, the Bulgarian nation enters into various spatial and cultural-historical configurations. Among them, there is a hierarchy, which in today's open society primarily depends on the value and selfdetermination of each person. On the other hand, the interwoven cultural elements on the Bulgarian territory enable some researchers to talk about transitional identity structures - Bulgarian-Slavic, Slavic-Orthodox, Balkan-Slavic, Balkan-European and others. The author also investigates the geopolitical concept of the 'civilisational choice', which is supposed to determine the place of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians in Europe and in the world: is it in the West Euro-Atlantic sphere or in Eurasia?